Cigarette Effects on Women

Recently, The Province (a newspaper in British Columbia) published an article on a study regarding the health effects of cigarettes on women. This new study involved over 100,000 women in a huge U.S. Nurses’ Health Study, most of who were healthy, and Caucasian. The analysis set out to discover how
the health of a female smoker was affected, although there is no data on how different ethnic groups could be affected. This study was the first of its kind to attempt to find this data.

There was a substantial amount of information gathered. The research noted that even a “small-to-moderate” quantity per day (1-14 cigarettes) could nearly double the chances of sudden cardiac death or cardiac arrest. The data showed that the longer a woman smoked, the health risks increased. For
example, 5 years of continuous smoking was related to an 8% increase in the chances of dying of cardiac arrest. Every year in Canada, around 40,000 people suffer a fatal heart attack.

This study also tried to find the relationship between smoking and cardiac arrest. The researchers noted all of the 101,018 women involved who were free of the known cardiovascular disease, and provided them with a questionnaire every 2 years to discuss their current medical health. After 30 years, 351 participants died of cardiac sudden death.

If you would like to read more about this topic, check out the original article with the link provided below!